


This Is Music?!

by RockyMountainRattlesnake



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anachronisms, Dancing, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Questionable musical taste, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Sort Of, drum and bass, dubstep - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21547954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockyMountainRattlesnake/pseuds/RockyMountainRattlesnake
Summary: The Doctor is a time traveler. His music collection encompasses all of time and space, all of human history, forwards and backwards. Including songs that, from his companion's perspective, won't be released for decades. Which means he can introduce his lovely Sarah Jane to genres whose forefathers haven't even been dreamed of in her time. How exciting!Or: Sarah Jane learns about dubstep and explicit lyrics...the hard way.
Relationships: Fourth Doctor & Sarah Jane Smith, Tenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor & Sarah Jane Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. The 1970's

**Author's Note:**

> I've been listening. To so much Pendulum. And so much Knife Party. While writing A Wretched Ark. So, so much Pendulum. And then I got talking to my friend about Four jamming out to songs that won't be out for decades from Sarah Jane's perspective, and changing social mores RE: swearing and vulgarity in music, and then this fic happened. 
> 
> Playlist'll be at the end, if you're interested. 
> 
> Title is courtesy of my grandmother, who commented that when I drove her to see a friend and left the radio tuned to the rock and roll station by accident.

The first thing Sarah Jane noticed, as she walked back with a pint of milk from the corner store, was that the TARDIS was _vibrating_ slightly.

It was parked on the streetcorner, just as he’d left it, but it was just…slightly…shaking. And from the other side of the closed doors, there was the faint sound, like- like-

It sounded a bit like a Dalek trying to sing, actually, now that she thought about it. What was the Doctor DOING in there?!

She unlocked the door gingerly, pushing it open a crack, and recoiling as a wall of NOISE slammed into her like a fist to the face. Leaking out from the crack in the doorway was something she’d never heard before in all her life- the closest she could think was that one nightclub they’d walked by on Abraxis-6, and even then, she hadn’t wanted to go in. The floor outside the club had been shaking- just like the pebbles on the sidewalk near the TARDIS were currently shaking.

Sarah Jane dropped the milk, clapped her hands over her ears, and elbowed her way into the TARDIS.

“DOCTOR!” she screamed over the “music”, “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU _DOING_ IN HERE?!”

He was twirling around the console, shaking his body in wild and excitable contortions, his scarf flapping along behind him; it took her a minute to work out that the mad bastard was _DANCING_ to this earsplitting racket.

The bassline pounded through her, shaking her teeth in her skull, and the music had horrible electronic swoops and sweeps, like some nightmarish thing an evil computer had spat out. Was this for torturing people?! What- WHAT ALIEN RACE HAD MADE THIS HORRIBLE TRAVESTY?!

The song ended, and the Doctor turned over to the console, tapping a button to reduce the volume to something a bit more manageable. Sarah Jane uncoiled, releasing her ears; her head HURT from how loud and awful that song was.

“Sarah Jane!” the Doctor boomed, “Come dance with me!”

“No. No. No. NO.” she growled, “Not until you tell me what the blo- what in God’s name you’re listening to! What was that HORRIBLE racket?! What depraved aliens would make something like that?!”

The Doctor grinned and pointed at her.

“Humans! That’s human music. Here’s another by the same group. It’s from 2011-“

Sarah Jane’s eyes went wide. Humans? HUMANS HAD MADE THIS?!

But the Doctor was already in high-speed warble mode.

“-Called Knife Party, it’s just delightfully primal, isn’t it? This one’s called ‘Internet Friends’, I think you’ll like it very much!”

He pressed a button and Sarah Jane just stared at him. What- what had BECOME of the human race in the intervening decades? What had they DONE!? Had they been taken over by the cybermen or something-?!

And then the song properly started and her stomach lurched when she realized that THIS one had SINGING in it.

The song started with a thundering bassline, to which the Doctor dutifully gyrated, shaking his shoulders and torso in time with the beat; he was clearly enjoying himself. The lyrics weren’t really sung so much as spoken, and there was a note of artificiality, like the woman speaking wasn’t actually a woman and was simply a machine. Machine or not, the words were definitely creepy- _“Come now, surely we can be friends? I know so much about you…”_

Sarah Jane shivered.

“Come on! Dance with me!” the Doctor called, and then the next stanza hit, and-

_“Why don't you answer me?_

_I bet you're busy talking to some fucking slut_

_Fucking skank_

_Is she hotter than me?_

_Would you fuck me?_

_Are you gay?”_

The robotic voice growled out those horrible, vulgar words, the Doctor cheerfully oblivious to it all.

Sarah Jane’s eyes went wide, and she stepped out of the TARDIS, slammed the door behind herself, and sank to the ground.

That- what-

What had BECOME of the human race? What had happened, that people would sing about such- depravity? So casually, in a song the Doctor-

Why was he DANCING to it?!

She swallowed. Those lyrics, the angry, aggressive tone of the song- it was creepy, and violent, and disgusting, and she was worried. Was the Doctor okay? Was the human race okay, in the future? She needed to demand that he take her forward. To see how everyone was, if they needed- help. That song sounded like a cry for help to her ears.

The TARDIS abruptly stopped vibrating, and the door opened.

“Sarah Jane? Are you alright?” the Doctor’s voice was laced with concern, and he closed the door behind himself and sat down next to her.

“Doctor,” she said, rubbing her face, “What- what WAS that horrible music? Why was it so- so vulgar? Is- is the human race okay, in the future? Are we all just, depraved, singing about…that? Why were you LISTENING to it?”

The Doctor hummed, thinking on the swarm of questions. He looked up at the birds flying overhead, pondering how best to answer.

“Humanity is fine.” He said kindly, “Music changes. It evolves, it grows, it morphs into something new over time. As all things do. See that pigeon, there?” he pointed at the bird perched on a nearby gate.

She nodded.

“Millions of years ago, that bird’s ancestors were dinosaurs, of the same type as T.Rex. But they grew, and changed, and you wouldn’t recognize them if you hadn’t dug up all the fossils in-between, would you? And that’s what I’ve just done, I’m afraid. You’ve got a dinosaur, and I’ve just shown you a bird, and I’ve insisted they’re related without showing you any of the bits in-between.”

“So…music will become… _that?”_ she shuddered.

The Doctor shook his head. “Not all music. Some of it, yes. That’s called “dubstep”- it’s meant to be danced to, in a club. It’s not meant to be thought about that much. I just wanted something primal and passionate, to dance with wild abandon. But…perhaps…” he smiled and looked at her.

“Would you like to hear another song by the same gentlemen who made the one I was listening to?”

Sarah Jane shivered. “Is it the same awful, loud-“

“No. This one has trumpets and guitars. It’s a little heavy, but I think it might be fun if we danced to it.”

He stood up and offered her his hand, which she took. Nervously, Sarah-Jane followed her mad friend back into the TARDIS.

He hopped over to the console, setting a few buttons and switches, and pressing a button to start the song with an expectant sparkle in his eyes.

And there was NO WAY this song could have been made by the same people as the horrible racket he’d been jamming to.

_No way in hell._

It opened with a brace of trumpets, wailing out a tune- Music! MELODIES! **INSTRUMENTS!**

They honked out a jazzy, upbeat tune, and then the drums kicked in, and the Doctor swaggered over, already bopping his entire body to the beat. The drums thundered along under the lyrics, words that actually meant something; a man, a real man, singing. And-

The beat was kinda catchy. It was fast- VERY fast, the tempo was just obscenely quick- but there was melody and harmony, and the drums, lovely lovely drums. And, well-

The Doctor was dancing. So…

She started to bop along to the beat, nervously at first, shaking a little from side to side, until she found her own groove. The thudding drums, the occasional brace of trumpets wailing out the powerful main melody-

Sarah Jane lost herself in the music.

“This is by the same band?!” she yelled, rolling her whole body to the beat. Maybe it wasn’t QUITE to her taste, but she could see how someone might get into this kind of thing…

“Same men!” the Doctor said, “This is a different genre- Drum and Bass, they called it, and this lot liked to experiment a bunch, but-“

He stopped talking; she wasn’t listening anymore, too busy dancing around the console with wild abandon. The Doctor smiled, and lost himself in the music too. Perhaps dubstep simply wasn’t to her taste.

“I might want to try this again sometime!” Sarah Jane called, bopping along as the singer crooned the chorus.

The Doctor grinned at her.

“That can be arranged!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Four was probably dancing to before Sarah Jane showed up and what she caught the tail end of:  
> [EDM Death Machine by Knife Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKjfNnh8Hq0)
> 
> The song Four put on for Sarah Jane:  
> [Internet Friends by Knife Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luJJBeCFeM0)
> 
> The song they were dancing to at the end:  
> [Propane Nightmares by Pendulum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve4qfo7kXho)
> 
> I've been listening. To so much Pendulum. Holy fuck. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure this qualifies as songfic but whatever.


	2. 2005

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Sarah Jane catch up.

**THIRTY YEARS LATER...**

“Doctor!” Rose yelled. Where was he?! He’d gone into Sarah Jane’s house half an hour ago, and still hadn’t come out, and they had a JOB to do, dammit-

He’d asked Sarah Jane an odd question earlier- “Did you still have those records I made for you?” and when the answer came back as yes, they’d both begged off the investigation “for a little bit” and vanished without so much as a word.

She walked in the front door, blinking several times at the sound of _music_ floating from the kitchen.

And not any music.

Thudding, thumping, floor-shaking, drum-and-bass _club music._

What?

Rose ran into the house, kicking her shoes off by the door, and skidded across the hardwood into the kitchen-

The first thing she noticed was the record player. The Honest-to-God _record player_ set up on Sarah Jane’s kitchen island. An old one, from the 1970’s.

From which was emanating a _floor-shaking_ amount of bass, and it certainly wasn’t from the 1970’s. The glasses were rattling in the cupboard as the drums thundered underneath a heavy electronic main track, warps and whooshes underlaid on a powerful vocal performance.

 _“FEED THE FIRE! BREAK YOUR VISION! THROW YOUR FISTS UP! COME ON WITH ME!”_ the singer roared, and Rose’s eyes bounced off the stack of records in shiny slipcovers and onto the two people in the kitchen.

The kitchen table had been shoved aside, and Sarah Jane was dancing like she was in a nightclub, shaking her whole body to the music, her arms in the air, eyes closed and just lost in the music.

And the Doctor, HER Doctor, was jamming out just as hard, singing along to the lyrics. They weren’t dancing TOGETHER, thank God, but just-

The sight of a middle-aged woman and an alien in pinstripes and trainers dancing to _Pendulum,_ on a fucking _record player,_ was one of the most surreal things she’d ever seen in her travels with the Doctor.

The Doctor grabbed Sarah Jane’s hand with a whoop, spinning her around and letting her spin him back, and the two of them broke apart to resume jamming out. Separate, but together.

“Thank you for the dance, Doctor,” Sarah Jane said to him with a smile as the song ended.

“My pleasure, Sarah Jane. We should do this again sometime!” he was beaming at her. “Ooh, want to do another one? What’ve you got in here, did I press you Invaders Must Die, or- ooh, you DO have the Prodigy! Brilliant!”

Rose just stared.

“Doctor,” she said, “What- what are you doing?”

The Doctor and Sarah Jane looked at each other.

“Dancing. For old time’s sake. And I really do mean JUST dancing this time, Rose Tyler. We’ll be back in a minute…Ooh, how ‘bout this one next?”

Sarah Jane nodded eagerly, and the Doctor carefully switched the record, buzzing the player with his sonic to skip it ahead to the right point. He put the needle down, and Rose walked away as the two of them started jamming out once again- the Prodigy, this time, and Rose had just stepped into the hall when the lyrics kicked in above the thundering warping bassline.

_“CHANGE MY PITCH UP…SMACK MY BITCH UP…”_

Sarah Jane whooped, and Rose decided it was probably best to leave them.

And DEFINITELY best not to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Sarah Jane and Ten were jamming out to when Rose walked in:  
> [Watercolour by Pendulum ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9I01iNFcL4)
> 
> What they put on immediately afterwards:  
> [Smack my Bitch Up by The Prodigy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIMVbL1rq5c)
> 
> I assumed Four would have made Sarah Jane records of all these future songs so she could enjoy them with the technology she had to hand in her home time period. 
> 
> Anyway, if you liked it, hated it, or think I have shit musical taste, let me know in the comments! All your comments are super delicious and I love them all.


End file.
